I never really understood what these desktop activities are (when you zoom out from the cashew), and it looks more like a half-baked unfinished idea that got lumped in. One thing that really gives this impression are the checkered transparency squares.

Reading up on it, it seems as though it's a way to switch groups of Plasmoids. A bit strange, because I haven't seen Plasmoids being a huge amount of use to me - folder view is great, the clock is simply eye-candy, perhaps the todo-note, but that's it. I don't really see how I can categorise Plasmoids for work, fun, and otherwise. Perhaps I am missing a whole bunch of astoundingly amazing Plasmoids? Personally I think it's a very long winded way just to organise Plasmoids.

What am I missing?

You're missing the point, that KDE4 is still very new. As adoption of KDE4 increases more and more plasmoids will be added. WIth 4.2 they also introduce new bindings for plasmoids like Python and ECMAScript making it easier for developers to get into it.
Actually, I use the activities a lot especially on my notebook, as screenspace is a bit rare there. So I have activtites for spare time, work and university, each with different folder views, icons for the most used apps for each activity and so on.
But if you don't make use of plasmoids on your desktop, you won't need activities of course...

Is there any way to remove an activitie? I have created some but I can't find a way to remove them :S

Korosu_Itai: http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma#How_can_ ... ctivity.3F

Jucato wrote:Korosu_Itai: http://userbase.kde.org/Plasma#How_can_ ... ctivity.3F

Thanks!

I don't think this is intuitive at all, activities should be removed the same way they're added, the option to remove one should be at the plasma logo (the one at the right upper corner).

they will be removed the same way they are added, the developers just hadn't the time to do this yet.
probably on 4.2

Tomaz wrote:they will be removed the same way they are added, the developers just hadn't the time to do this yet.
probably on 4.2

great then ^^

Moult wrote:Reading up on it, it seems as though it's a way to switch groups of Plasmoids. A bit strange, because I haven't seen Plasmoids being a huge amount of use to me

don't use it if you don't find it useful, just ignore it. many do find it useful, however, such as one fellow who uses it to keep different sets of folders and tools around for different work projects he is working on.

as for "i haven't found any plasmoids that are compelling for me", perhaps you never will. given that plasma is 10 months old, though, it might be a bit soon to call that one quite yet.


anyways .. the other purpose of activities is to allow people to switch how they interact with their desktop: choosing a featureless area, the default with the "cashew" button or a fullscreen folderview for a "traditional" icons-everywhere desktop.

dtritscher, or anybody else who uses activities a lot - can you please show us some screenies of how you use it? I'm very interested in seeing an actual usage of activities.

In general, I have this feeling of an obligation to use a tool if it comes packaged

Thanks for the information - I know plasmoids are still pretty new, but I was interested in seeing whether it was something at the stage where any average person could utilise it to a certain high level.

Moult wrote:dtritscher, or anybody else who uses activities a lot - can you please show us some screenies of how you use it? I'm very interested in seeing an actual usage of activities.

In general, I have this feeling of an obligation to use a tool if it comes packaged

Thanks for the information - I know plasmoids are still pretty new, but I was interested in seeing whether it was something at the stage where any average person could utilise it to a certain high level.

Alright, then i start to give some insight. The first screener is my personal activity.


You can see the folderview with some of my favourite apps, just like we did it in KDE3 times. Then i have a random picture frame, showing pictures of my family (this one actually showing me and my niece). And i like to see twitter and the moon phase.



The next one is especially or this forum. I have 2 folderviews, one being the original online, and one for the local copy to test. Whenever i have a test finished and everything seems to be okay, i can copy it over to the original board, just by dragging it.
Certainly as a webdeveloper you need a color picker, that's why i have it around. And maybe you need a calculator.
And the last one i need, a note, to keep track of all the things that aren't going like they should.

I have a third activity, but that is for my office, so nothing for the public.

neverendingo: thanks a lot! That picture really was worth a thousand words!
I'm now using three activities and finding it extremely useful.

One thing I'd like to make a more well known feature is the ability to switch between them with ctrl-shift-n and ctrl-shift-p. That really sped things up.

I got another question? Do activities take a lot performance? The last time i used them i got lower fps in games and so on.